Microsoft over the weekend released a firmware update for Surface Pro 2 users that were affected by a botched update last month. The update is described by sources close to the company as one of multiple pending updates or a...

In the 90's, I was dismayed to see Microsoft drag along behind the technology industry like a boat anchor chained to its ankles. Brilliant companies abounded from the high end workstation wars between Sun, Silicon Graphics and even HP, hell, even IBM had its Unix rival, AIX and I worked on it just as happily (for the most part as Sun OS or any Linux or Unix.) A browser was a purpose built tool and some had their forte while others were integrated into the OS and served their purpose rather like Safari does today -- you'd never go out of your way to "choose" it, but if it's already loaded, it will suffice. Then Microsoft turned pre-loaded and bundled software into a "strategic" attack on Netscape and all "that" unfolded. Innovation was multi-pronged and you could stay at the front of the mainstream adoption wave, or you could venture close to the so-called "chasm" or even cross that chasm and be still fully operational in beta products that today, would be considered fully fledged, mature technology.
Somewhere in the 90's or early noughties, Microsoft perhaps struck some backroom deal with the NSA and or CIA (as apparently did Cisco and other tech giants) and they were allowed to continue on as the global giant monopoly that has continued to suffocate technological innovation in consumer computer technology. Of course, if this is a strangely controversial suggestion or a conspiracy theory to some, it's simply that from within the blinkered world of "think different" and Microsoft's grand innovation drumbeat of practically zero actual progress in the last 15 years or so, well, it's hard to see the whole context of how pitifully shallow the technology world has been for so long.
Other than government intervention to suppress consumer access to computer technology while they built systems power enough to literally take a bit by bit transcript of every packet on the Internet, I can't explain how we're still struggling to work with computers through a keyboard designed for mechanical typewriters in the middle of last century, that voice recognition is still a hit-or-miss frustration, that computers are still so slow and so cumbersome, so unreliable and error-prone. The news we receive through Yahoo! or Google is more censored than newspapers were; and now all the newspapers are owned either by Rupert Murdoch or someone who can be trusted by the NSA/CIA to keep his mouth shut when it suits them.
So I'm not too fussed that Microsoft botched yet another software update; it won't be the last, it's just a symptom of the dog food we're finding on the shelf with the label on the outside reading "wholesome natural goodness (tm.)"